Serving Science to bring improvement in Human Health and Environment: NextGen Life Sciences Private Limited
It is in tough times that the mettle of humans is tested, and that holds true for entrepreneurs and their businesses as well. NextGen Life Sciences is a company that has not just survived the rough weather but has actively assisted in the fight against the pandemic, despite having to face the heat itself.
Company Overview
In order to cater the untapped opportunities in the industry, Dr. Nagma Abbasi established NextGen Life Sciences in 2014 with an objective to become a frontrunner in the distribution of innovative biological products and services for the Life Science Research and Diagnostic market. And also provide complete solutions in Instrumentation, Reagents, Next Generation Sequencing Services, Bioinformatics, and customized solutions to Scientists and Researchers. The company wants to deliver the right products of scientific needs in minimum possible time at the doorstep to facilitate research findings in order to bring improvement in the human health and environment. The company is poised to become one-stop-solution to cater to the research needs of scientists in the Field of Molecular biology, Cell Biology, Immunology, Healthcare, Drug Development, and more.
The NextGen group bridges the gap in understanding the needs and pains of Researchers of the Life Sciences/ Biotech industry and help scientists gain insight on the recent innovations and technologies, assuring a sound knowledge of the subject matter. At first, NextGen try getting insight on the customer requirements by exchanging ideas, then understand the complete workflow and expect results which in turn helps them to suggest customers’ best possible customized solutions. Their methods of measuring success are not conventional. Dr. Nagma says, “I measure success in different scales like Conversations with clients, ROI, Conversion rate, Customer satisfaction, and others with parameters like referrals from existing clients, growth, profit from the revenue, conversion rate, sales target and a lot more of organizational benefit factors.”
The firm has maintained a long-term relationship with clients by rendering quality services-TAT (Turnaround Time) for the product deliveries by managing inventories with microanalysis of basic needs of prime customers, addressing customer problems customers in time with best possible solutions, maintaining highly skilled and trained sales and technical team. In addition to that, it also has a dedicated team to look into after sales and services.
Navigating Through The Pandemic
COVID19 and the resulting lockdown came as a shock to most people and businesses. Dr. Nagma Abbasi (Founder and CEO) received the news of the nationwide lockdown, and her first reaction was that of relief. A sensible decision by the government, it was the need of the hour, and an initiative to halt the spread of the infection and ensure the health and safety of the people. For her, the security of her loved ones and employees took priority over running her business smoothly.
The lockdown came as a new learning experience for her and her team. With a little guidance from her in the beginning, the employees at NextGen Life Sciences managed to operate remotely quite well. The team connected through Zoom calls, and most the work, which took place mostly through mails and calls prior to the lockdown, continued in much the same way after a while. They managed to take on the challenge despite the distractions of working from home, and being well-versed with the relevant technology helped.
NextGen, being from the healthcare and biotechnology industry, responded to the demands of the time as well. As COVID19 cases kept on increasing across the country, the clients started demanding products for Covid Testing kits and instruments. As per ICMR guidelines the gold standard test Real Time PCR testing has been recommended for all clients. NextGen Team educated people about the Real Time PCR testing kits options available in Indian Market and provided the Best solutions to customers. NextGen worked with its associates and partners to make Best quality products available in world market on a highly competitive pricing to customers as a total End to End solution and contributed in the fight against the novel coronavirus.
The prime hospitals in Delhi, NCR, ICMR approved Diagnostic Centres, VTM Manufacturers and Research Institutes who has contributed in COVID Vaccine development were Prime clients for NextGen during this Pandemic. NextGen feel proud to serve nation in such difficult time and serve for this noble cause of saving lives.
“We don’t deliver products, we deliver experience.”
Working throughout the lockdown, the team stayed abreast of all the precautions and measures required to keep themselves safe during the pandemic. They sanitized the workplace twice a day, used masks and gloves, followed social distancing norms, and took special care with handling shipped material and making untouched deliveries to the client sites. The employees often needed to visit Covid testing sites, and that warranted utmost and special care for the entire team.
Like any other business during the lockdown, NextGen felt the heat too. With most of the research institutes being closed, the Life Science research aspect of their business took a hit. Dr. Nagma and her team, however, soon started working on new opportunities. They started working with clients recommended by the ICMR for Covid Testing and VTM manufacturers. As deliveries of products was major issue due to lockdown and major players in logistics was closed initially NextGen Team has face lot of issues of deliveries and Team need to personally pick products and deliveries from Airport and delivered shipments from airports to client sites. The team applied for an e Pass under essential services to work and move around in the lockdown. With most of the Research Institutes, Academia and Pharma clients temporarily shut down, their payments got stuck and they had a tough time recovering money from the market. But belonging to the healthcare industry and being able to provide services in times of dire need helped them gain the confidence of their customers. They went above and beyond to help their customers as well, giving credit as required and delivering much-needed products within given timelines.
They offered the best available products in the world market to Indian VTM manufacturing companies which have been used to collect COVID testing samples, to researchers and scientists involved in the vaccine development of COVID19 and Gold standard Real-time COVID Testing Kits, related consumables and instruments for testing.
Dr. Nagma finds herself lucky to have been able to manage the crisis, and for the excellent team that stood beside her and made that possible. They connected through Zoom calls, WhatsApp group calls, mails, etc. The team was busier during the lockdown, in order to offer services and products to their customers, and was highly motivated to work for a noble cause and help to save human lives.
Parting Words
Dr. Nagma Abbasi says, “Great things never come from the comfort zone. Real leaders are ordinary people with extraordinary determination.”
Her determination to face the various challenges the lockdown threw at them and come on top of it all helped NextGen weather the storm and has paved a way for a brighter future for the company.
